Chapter 133: All Lunatics
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Weishao Qianyu did not enter the tent, and Ye Jinye did not lower the curtain... Time seemed to stand still, and the surroundings appeared frozen. Weishao Qianyu stood outside the tent, dazed...
“Cough, cough...” A sharp coughing interrupted the stillness; it was Feng Jinye...
Hearing the sound, Weishao Qianyu suddenly turned and ran several miles away...
Was it cowardice? Was it timidity? Weishao Qianyu did not quite understand.
The night was deep. Unlike the city, the military camp was dotted with flickering fires; torches surrounded the area, which should have brought warmth, yet Weishao Qianyu felt a profound chill...
She was not fragile by nature. She had always believed herself strong, but at this moment, she truly felt helpless...
Outside Qu Du city, a few miles from the army’s encampment, stood an ancient locust tree...
The locust tree was not considered auspicious; it gave off a somber, eerie vibe. Weishao Qianyu paid no mind and climbed up effortlessly...
Since meeting Feng Jinye at thirteen, they had known each other less than four years. Their relationship was actually quite simple. Before this, Weishao Qianyu thought their feelings were not deeply etched...
But he foolishly pursued her, repeatedly orchestrating clumsy coincidences...
Two years ago, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, he saved her from danger, and their relationship began then. If one were to be honest, it was somewhat like the illusion of “a life debt repaid with oneself.”
Even together with Feng Jinye, life was simple and plain. The biggest difference was perhaps that Feng Jinye often became the jealous type...
Weishao Qianyu recalled their visits to lantern festivals, temple fairs, and night markets...
But frequent trips to lantern festivals and night markets grew tedious, and soon the place she visited most often was the Tea Guest House...
She was not born fond of quietude; on the contrary, she loved going to the northern outskirts of the city to play with the orphans left behind by the original owner...
Yet because of Feng Jinye, she grew fond of tea tasting and often found herself idly sitting in the Tea Guest House all day, feeling time pass swiftly...
Weishao Qianyu was also lazy, but Feng Jinye taught her swordsmanship, making her more diligent...
Perhaps this is what people mean when they say, “Some people’s charm is indefinable, yet irreplaceable.”
In the not-too-long, not-too-short days, Weishao Qianyu’s strong-willed, competitive nature gradually grew accustomed to leaning on Feng Jinye. Like the day Lu Yanran married and discovered a birthmark on her body identical to hers, she felt lost but thought of Feng Jinye first...
In the past, Weishao Qianyu found it hard to articulate the depth of these feelings...
At first, when she learned Feng Jinye’s identity, she had indeed worried their views on love would diverge greatly...
She once thought, at worst, it would be just a breakup; “Don’t exaggerate the loneliness.”
But now, when even a single meeting was impossible, Weishao Qianyu could not be as carefree as she imagined. She loved Feng Jinye more than she had thought.
The night breeze remained, the stars shone brightly, the campfires flickered, and the bright moon hung high—a peaceful and beautiful night...
But all of this felt meaningless to Weishao Qianyu.
So close, yet unable to be by his side—it hurt so much.
She knew Feng Jinye hurt too, body and soul.
Two people hurting meant a loss; better one suffer alone.
What Huangfu Chen said today made Feng Jinye temporarily forget about her; Weishao Qianyu began to consider it...
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Within the Yuan King’s mansion, Feng Jinye recounted to Weishao Qianyu everything he remembered about Qu Du...
He completely skipped over the process of being poisoned, only saying that he and Huangfu Chen had originally intended to take Qu Du by force. From the start, Feng Jinye saw through the old city lord of Qu Du’s scheme...
The marriage to the new city lord of Qu Du was something Feng Jinye had been delaying until surrounding cities were captured, then he struck Qu Du, using a ruse to reduce casualties...
This aligned with what Weishao Qianyu recalled, yet she still felt something was amiss. But Feng Jinye could not possibly lie to her...
Then what was the reason?
Weishao Qianyu was in great turmoil lately; the unresolved dream left her uneasy. After Feng Jinye finished explaining Qu Du, he said nothing more...
Seeing Weishao Qianyu’s troubled expression, Feng Jinye was struck again by a vague unease...
He remembered a major event that occurred three months after capturing Qu Du but dared not mention it now...
He sensed that Weishao Qianyu had forgotten something.
Why would she forget? With her nature, knowing there was cause and effect, she should not have been so indifferent!
The more Feng Jinye thought, the more uneasy he became, and he gradually held Weishao Qianyu tightly...
Inside the Twilight Pavilion, Huangfu Chen had been waiting for Weishao Qianyu since sending her a letter that day...
Recently, Xuanyuan Ran became the female national advisor of Liyue Kingdom.
After becoming the advisor, Xuanyuan Ran’s first act was to give Huangfu Chen the antidote for Yun Ming, urging him to bring Weishao Qianyu over...
Huangfu Chen knew Yun Ming would not last long. It was no simple matter to smoothly escort Weishao Qianyu out of Twilight Pavilion; clearly, Xuanyuan Ran had long laid out a plan...
After much deliberation, Huangfu Chen finally wrote a letter to Weishao Qianyu, even if it meant she would leave Feng Jinye, at least Yun Ming had a chance to live...
Though breaking the poison was far from simple...
The Devouring Heart Poison, the Love Bond Poison, and the Cold Poison all had no antidotes. Huangfu Chen never imagined that, though he, Feng Jinye, and Yun Ming grew up together, each was fed one of the most intractable poisons from Twilight Pavilion...
To break the poison was a matter of life and death.
Huangfu Chen still remembered when the Western Yan Poison Palace found a vial of poison bait—it was the blood of the poison mother...
During that assassination, Weishao Qianyu smeared that vial on the sword’s tip, just above the two fingers on the blade of the Hidden Abyss sword...
Huangfu Chen admired her greatly; that assassination was so precise, every strike controlled perfectly...
The sword’s tip cut wounds, but none touched above the two fingers on the blade...
The last strike missed the heart, and at the moment Feng Jinye’s heart stopped, the poisons immediately sensed the bait’s blood scent and crawled out from the wound on his chest...
Huangfu Chen admitted that even if he practiced swordsmanship all his life, he could not achieve such precision...
The Weishao Qianyu he knew was much like Feng Jinye—both madmen...
Huangfu Chen sighed. Twilight Pavilion seemed to be declining lately; though decline was not necessarily bad, Xuanyuan Ran appeared to be transferring many resources to Yunyang Mountain. Huangfu Chen sensed Yunyang Mountain would become another of Xuanyuan Ran’s power bases...
Though he did not know what Yunyang Mountain was exactly.
Huangfu Chen guessed that Weishao Qianyu must have been stopped by Feng Jinye; otherwise, with her nature, she would have arrived long ago. She must have thought that even death was worth exchanging her life for two others...
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Moreover, with her identity as the Heavenly Maiden of Weishao, she was not likely to die easily.
Behind Huangfu Chen, Lu Yanran watched him lost in thought...
Since Huangfu Chen wrote to Weishao Qianyu, he sought out Lu Yanran, anticipating that if Weishao Qianyu came to exchange poison bait, it would be Lu Yanran who would bring the bait back to Guanlin City...
To avoid mistakes, Huangfu Chen told Lu Yanran about the Cold Poison, which was very similar to the Devouring Heart Poison...
The Devouring Heart Poison could be suppressed if one abstained from love; the Cold Poison, however, continuously eroded the body without needing emotional triggers, and over time would destroy all internal organs, resulting in death...
The antidote for Cold Poison was the same as for the Devouring Heart Poison: after the poison left the host’s body, it required a new host...
This cure was undoubtedly a life-for-a-life exchange, but if Yun Ming survived, the new host could seek another poison bait to break the poison. Yet the existence of the poisons themselves could never be eradicated...
Lu Yanran listened with a fearful expression and asked Huangfu Chen, “What about the Love Bond Poison?”
Huangfu Chen looked at her in disbelief, “You know about the Love Bond Poison?”
“Yes,” Lu Yanran replied calmly, “I heard Mei Ji mention it once near the eastern outskirts of the city...”
Huangfu Chen and Lu Yanran were not well acquainted. Besides, Lu Yanran had been married and had a child, so a trace of suspicion in Huangfu Chen’s heart quickly faded...
Hearing Lu Yanran mention Mei Ji so naturally, Huangfu Chen thought nothing more of it.
“The Love Bond Poison is the opposite of the Devouring Heart Poison. The Devouring Heart Poison can separate two deeply in love; the Love Bond Poison binds two people without feelings to belong exclusively to each other, and betrayal means certain death!”
Huangfu Chen spoke lightly, as if stating a mere fact.
Lu Yanran suddenly understood what Lu Huiyan meant when she said she would die on her wedding bed—that was the meaning...
She had been truly fortunate not to die, and fortunate more than once; her marriage into the War King’s mansion failed, and later attempts to betroth with Yun Ming also failed...
Thinking of this made her frown deeply. She could not understand why, though Huangfu Chen was the young master of Twilight Pavilion, someone from the pavilion treated him so harshly...
But back then...
He was also forced.
Lu Yanran withdrew her thoughts and suddenly missed Rui’er...
Yet she was glad Weishao Qianyu had not come; she did not wish for Weishao Qianyu to come and rescue her...
Huangfu Chen barely noticed Lu Yanran, lost in his own thoughts. Suddenly, a surge rose in his chest, and he coughed up a mouthful of sweet blood...
He was stunned, looking at the blood he spat out—the poison inside him had triggered for the first time...
“Heh heh...” Huangfu Chen looked at the blood on the ground and unexpectedly laughed out loud...
Why did he consider Weishao Qianyu a madwoman? Because when she was breaking Feng Jinye’s poison, she planned to draw the poison onto herself...
But Huangfu Chen was no less mad. Initially, he grabbed the sword’s blade, and all the Devouring Heart Poison entered his body...
Though he was wild and unrestrained by nature, in front of Feng Jinye and Weishao Qianyu, he was forced to become a masochist...
Suppressing the surge of emotions, he was about to turn back inside, but glanced back to find Lu Yanran behind him staring with a strange look...